Six Bad Things (17 page)

He laughs a little.

—You know, you know who’s in Vegas? Remember T?

T? Oh shit, T.

—The dealer we scored off? The spaz?

—Yeah.

—I thought he got three-striked and put away.

—No, no way. He had two convictions and was on parole when they busted him the third time. Somehow his lawyer got him bail, and he jumped it. Went to Vegas.

—I don’t know, man, he was such a…

—Such a fuckup?

—Yeah.

—Well, I guess that’s why we all got along.

I laugh.

—Yeah.

—You know what? He sends me, you’ll love this, he sends me Christmas cards, every year.

—No way.

—Yeah, complete, the guy is
wanted
here, and he sends me Christmas cards complete with a return address.

We’re both laughing.

—I just got this year’s, like, yesterday. Want me to go get it?

He puts his hand on the door.

—No, no, I don’t think T is the guy I need for this.

—No, you should see, you should see this, it’s a riot.

He’s really laughing now, and I can’t help but join in.

—Yeah, OK, OK, I want to see it.

—Hang on.

He opens the door and steps out just as the black Toyota pickup squeals around the corner and plows into the front of the truck, sending Wade flying to crash against the front of his house.

I OPEN my eyes. Where am I? I’ve been in an accident. I was driving my Mustang and something happened and. Oh, God. I think I killed Rich. Oh, God.

I’m lying on my back, looking up at the stars. I’m not in the Mustang. It’s not then, it’s now. I’m lying on my back in a driveway looking up at the stars. I’ve been in another accident. I’m lying next to a huge, long-bed pickup with the driver’s door hanging open. There’s a black pickup that looks like it tried to occupy the same parking space as the long-bed. Bad call. I must have been thrown out of the long-bed when… When what?

My head is lodged in a cone of silence. I shake it and the sounds start to penetrate: dogs barking, car alarms set off by the crash, someone crying. Someone crying. I should see if I can help. I move my arms: check. I move my legs: check. Here goes. I roll onto my stomach and get myself up on my hands and knees. I won’t say it feels good, but nothing screams too loudly. OK, let’s go for broke: I stand up. My head does a little spin and tumble, the world spins the opposite way, trying to catch up, they crash together, and everything stops moving around. Safe to say I have some dings and bruises, but I’m better off than the guy with the mullet who’s lodged in the windshield of the long-bed. Mullet. When was the last time I saw someone with a mullet? Oh, right. The puzzle pieces in my head fall back together into the shape of my brain.

Fat Guy and Mullet Head must have been riding in the truck bed. Mullet Head is jammed into an indentation in the long-bed’s windshield that is shaped exactly like his body. Fat Guy is sprawled on the hood of the Toyota, just now propping himself up on his elbows to look around. Ponytail Boy is behind the wheel, trying to get his door open, but it looks like both of his arms are broken so he’s not doing a very good job of it. Leslie is the one who’s crying, except it’s more like screaming. She looks OK (has her seat belt on and everything), but she’s clutching something limp and dollish. Her door is hanging open. As I walk over, I hear a rustling sound, and turn to see a pair of feet sticking out of a bush, which tells me where Danny is.

I reach into the truck cab. Leslie stops screaming, lets me take Cassidy out of her arms and sits there holding herself, rocking back and forth.

I lay Cassidy on the pavement. There’s blood covering her face, and her long, honey hair is stuck in it. I take off the CSM jacket and wipe at the blood with the cotton lining. There’s a gash in her forehead where it must have slapped the dash. It’s bloody like all head wounds, but not too big. I press the jacket against her head and feel her pulse. Good, her pulse is good, her chest is rising and falling regularly, there’s no blood coming from her mouth, and none of her limbs are obviously broken. She was probably sleeping in her mom’s lap, her body limp and relaxed for the crash. That’s good.

—Leslie.

She’s staring at her daughter. Lights have come on in the houses on the street, people are standing on their porches in nightclothes.

—Leslie!

She looks at me.

—Come here and help.

She unbuckles and climbs down out of the truck.

—Take this.

I put her hand on top of the jacket over her daughter’s forehead.

—Just hold it here, keep pressure on it.

Patterson doesn’t have its own police force; it’s served by the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department. Last I knew they had two cars working the whole west side of the county. With a bit of luck, they’ll have to send one from Newman. The nearest hospital and ambulance service is in Turlock. So the siren that raises up now is probably the fire department.

I take my hand off of Leslie’s. She looks from her daughter’s face to mine.

—I think she’s OK. Just keep the pressure on and someone will be here real fast.

She nods.

—I have to go.

I walk up the driveway to Wade. His body is a tangled jumble. I touch his face, pocked with acne scars, the crazed hair clipped short and thinning. Oh shit, Wade.

—Wade?

I turn my head at the voice. A woman my age is standing at the top of the drive. She’s wearing flannel boxers, a too-large jacket she must have grabbed on her way out the door, and little booty socks on her feet. Her face is pillow-creased and her short dark hair is severely bedheaded. I recognize her from high school. Stacy Wilder. Wow, Wade hooked up with Stacy “The Wild One” Wilder. Way to go, buddy.

—Wade?

I stand up. Point at him.

—He.

And Danny shoots me in the back.

IT’S THE back of my leg, really.

My left leg flies out from underneath me and I fall on my back. Beyond the sound of the shot echoing in my ears, I hear doors slamming shut up and down the street as the rubberneckers dive back inside. The siren is coming closer.

—Got you, fucker.

I tilt my head and see Danny behind me.

—Got you good, wanted man.

Wanted man? Now how in hell does he know that? He takes a step closer. He’s bleeding from his mouth. Something to my left moves. I look and see a boy coming up behind Stacy, where she stands frozen, staring at Wade.

The boy is about thirteen, has Wade’s hair and flat nose. He’s wearing a San Jose Sharks jersey and carrying a hockey stick. He’s sees me and Danny. And then he sees his dad. His eyes go big and his mouth opens. I lift a hand.

—Stacy.

She looks from her husband to me. Danny nudges my head with his sneaker.

—Shut up.

I point at the boy.

—Stacy, get your boy inside.

Her eyes move from me to Wade, to me again, to Danny’s cheap Korean Glock knockoff. She turns, finds her gaping boy there, grabs him, and pulls him toward the front door.

—Shut the fuck up.

He’s right over me now. Perspective has him flipped upside down.

Upside down.

That’s a good idea.

—Danny, shouldn’t you be taking care of your daughter?

He turns his head to look over his shoulder and I reach up, grab his ankles, and pull his feet out from under him. The gun goes off and a bullet pokes a hole in the garage door. Danny hits the ground flat on his back, makes a woofing noise, and the gun jars out of his hand and skips down the driveway. I stand up, take a step to go after the gun, and my left leg folds under me.

Oh yeah, I’m shot.

Danny rolls onto his stomach and is crawling for the gun before I can try to stand again. I look at my leg. It’s bleeding, but it looks like it’s just the obligatory flesh wound, a shallow gash on the side of my thigh. Ready for the pain this time, I get to my feet and start limping around the side of Wade’s house, running from Danny and his shitty gun and the siren that is now very close.

The gate is unlatched from when Wade and I came out for our walk. I swing it open and pull it closed behind me, hearing the latch click as it locks. I limp toward the woodpile.

—Freeze, fucker.

Danny is climbing over the gate, gun waving in my general direction. He slips at the top of the fence, lands roughly on his side, and the gun goes off again, splintering firewood. I dive through the side door into the dark garage, close it and lock it, and limp toward the workbench.

I grab the drawer and yank. It’s locked. Well, of course it’s locked, you watched him lock it, asshole. There’s a crowbar mounted on the pegboard over the bench. I shove it into the crack between the drawer and the benchtop and heave. Grinding and a small snapping noise, but the drawer holds. Danny is banging on the door. I can see him framed there in the window. The siren sounds like it’s right up the street. I heave again, the drawer flies open, off its tracks and onto the floor. Danny presses his face against the glass, trying to see through the darkness inside.

—Open up, fucker. Fucking open up!

I grab the gun, flip the empty cylinder open, and squat painfully, digging through the mess that fell from the drawer, looking for ammo. Nothing.

Danny hits the window with a piece of firewood and it shatters.

I stand, and right there at eye level, on a shelf above the bench, is a black plastic box with MAGNUM written across the top in big red letters. I grab the box, pop the lid, and a handful of feathers flutters out.

Wade Hiller on the subject of pigeon feathers: “I save them in a little box.”

The siren screams close and stops right out front. For a moment a red and blue light pulses through the hole Danny shot in the garage door. Then he turns on the overheads and everything goes bright.

I flip the empty cylinder closed and turn. Danny squints at me and I squint back. He’s raising his gun. I bring up the .357 he has no idea I’m holding, and point it at his face. His eyes turn into Frisbees. He freezes, his gun hand wavering.

Before he can decide to shoot me, I do what Jimmy Cagney would do, and throw my empty gun at him.

AT SIXTEEN, my fastball was in the mid-eighties and frequently grazed ninety. I used to stand in the backyard and throw pitch after pitch from the mound Dad and I had made, through the tire he had hung from the limb of a tree exactly sixty feet and six inches away, Major League distance. Once, with a bunch of teammates watching and egging me on, I threw a hundred and four in a row, right through the center. All fastballs. My shoulder blew up like a pumpkin and Dad was pissed at me for risking my arm, but the kids talked about it for weeks, and it made me feel so cool.

A BASEBALL weighs about five ounces. The gun in my hand feels like it’s two or three pounds. Fortunately, Danny isn’t sixty and a half feet away. More like eight. The Anaconda clocks him in the forehead and he goes down.

I can hear voices outside yelling. I walk over to Danny. He’s out. I stuff the Anaconda in my jeans and grab his pistol. There’s blood all over his face from the mouth wound and a new cut I’ve opened on his forehead.

Over a black leather jacket, he’s wearing a blue-jean vest covered in patches: Insane Clown Posse, Slipknot, Godflesh, etc. The jacket has fallen open; underneath is a bloodstained concert T-shirt, the same one he had on the other day.

Except it’s not a concert shirt.

I tug his jacket open the rest of the way and expose the big
America’s Most Wanted
logo. I remember Robert Cramer mentioning my episode of that show in his book, and the expression on Danny’s face when I looked him in the eye after I beat him up, and the way he pointed at me.

Danny knows who I am.

Which means his friends know who I am.

Which means, just as soon as the cops get here, they’ll be telling them that I’m alive and in town.

Glass crunches under a shoe. The firefighter standing in the door is a woman around twenty-five, she’s carrying a big EMT kit. She sees me, sees the gun. Freezes.

Too late, Henry. Too late to do anything now but run.

I tilt my head toward the street.

—The sheriffs out there yet?

She licks her lips.

—Not yet.

—How long?

—Couple minutes maybe.

I point at my leg.

—I need you to wrap this up. Quick.

She doesn’t move.

—It’s OK, you’re gonna be OK, I just need you to do your job.

She nods, walks over, kneels, and opens her kit. I reach down, grab the edges of the hole in my pant leg, and rip so she can get to the wound. She tears open a sterile pack and starts wiping blood away. I whine a little and grit my teeth. She stops and looks up at me.

—It’s OK, just hurry.

She looks at the wound.

—It needs stitches.

—Just bandage it, for Christ sake.

She starts wrapping my leg, going over the wound, and around the pant leg.

—The guy outside, next to the garage?

She’s concentrating on her work.

—Yeah?

—He alive?

—I don’t know, my partner’s on him. One of the neighbors said someone in the garage might be hurt. I came in here.

The wrap is done.

—Got any penicillin in there?

—Yeah.

—Better give me a shot.

She pulls out an ampoule, rips it out of its pack, and stabs me in the leg. I can hear another siren. The sheriffs. Time to go.

—Thanks.

I point at Danny.

—Why don’t you work on him and we’ll skip all the lying-on-the-floor-and-counting-to-a-hundred crap.

—OK.

She turns to Danny and takes his pulse. I open the door to the house.

STACY WAS a year behind me and Wade. She was a real good girl; honor roll, student government, extracurricular this and that. She was also the hottest chick in school. Being a star jock at school, I crossed paths with her brainy-but-popular crowd. I remember flirting with her once, not really trying to get anywhere except in the way teenage boys are always trying to get somewhere. But I didn’t try that hard. I didn’t have to try hard with any of the other chicks, so why bother with one who wanted me to work for it? What I thought. Wade’s crew of burnouts wouldn’t have crossed paths with her clique, wouldn’t have even had classes together, let alone social interaction. But I remember being baked with him in PE and watching her run track with the girls and him saying that if he could nail any chick in school she’d be the one. Man, I’d love to hear the story of how they hooked up in the first place. But Wade can’t tell me, and I can’t ask Stacy because she’s too busy right now beating me with her son’s hockey stick.